Buying the dress was easy...

Buying the dress was easy. I simply typed the words purple dress into eBay, and there, waiting in the very first line of results was my dress. The right colour, the right style, and most importantly, the right size. A couple of clicks and a matter of seconds later Id made what most people think of as the big wedding purchase: The Dress.

Normal people that is, not a fledgling fume-nerd like myself. For, ever since I found myself engaged last February, Ive been thinking about what perfume to wear with that dress. What scent is it that I want to be inextricably linked with what is meant to be, after all, one of the most memorable days of ones life? Ive got professionals to deal with my hair and makeup, so my wedding perfume really is the most personal of these decisions.

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Two years ago, this wouldnt have been a problem. Two years ago, I only owned three bottles of perfume: Acqua di Parma, a soapy-fresh intense cologne that Ive loved since the first time I ever smelled it, as to me it is the scent of a big, handsome man fresh from a hot, massively sudsy (Imperial Leather, naturally) shower after tough game of rugby. But do I really want to be fantasising about Hugh Jackman on my wedding day? Probably not. So, if I was getting married back in 2010, my other choices would have been Cristalle by Chanel, which brings to mind tiny white flowers and the crisp greens of their stems on slightly damp spring days, which Ive worn whenever I want to feel feminine or grownup. Being neither in reality, the fragrance has awesome powers as a disguise. My final choice in 2010 would have been by Aromatics Elixir by Clinique. That massive patchouli and rose hand-grenade of a fragrance that I wore with careless abandon throughout my twenties, and that I still wear far too much of even now. I like a perfume to be a perfume. Luckily for my groom-to-be, though, Ive grown out of my love of Giorgio Beverly Hills ...

In 2010, however, like so many other people, I read Perfumes the A-Z Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, and my perfume life has been turned upside down as a result. From the book, I have begun to realise that not every single perfume on the market is a fruitycandyflossmusk pink stew, catering solely to celebrity-obsessed pre-teens as it so often seems. Inspired, I devoted most of 2011 to educating myself about perfume, sniffing everything and everything I could, and now that leaves me with my current dilemma. I have too much choice! So, how do I go about picking my wedding perfume?

Unconsciously, it seems, Ive set myself some ground rules, and these are they:
So where does that leave me? Ironically, my list of must nots does, in fact leave me some options. After a misfire with my initial choice of Seville a Laube, a fleshy take on orange blossom that I fell into love at first sniff with, and which MrL decided was too heady and strong (hes a philistine, but Im marrying him anyway, what can I say?), we went for a fragrance profiling at LArtisan Perfumer. Eventually we managed to pick out the his and hers options of Timbuktu for him and Safran Troublant for me. The spiciness of Safran Troublant is just challenging, and different, enough without being too edgy, and the creamy milk and rice of the drydown isnt so gourmand as to make it feel like Ive spilled food on myself, as a few foody-fragrances are prone to do. And Timbuktu is a great flinty take on incense, with it not being too churchy, and yet somehow still clean, it suits MrL down to the ground, and, judging by the amount of times hes worn it since, its a winner with him too.

So will these be our wedding fragrances? As yet, I dont know. Ive been following a policy of paying particular attention to the fragrances MrL spontaneously compliments, and adding those to a mental shortlist. Just the other day he declared that Plum by Mary Greenwell was delicious, which, indeed it is, and a great example of a modern fragrance which hasnt been dumbed down for the masses. But then, there has been my tried and trusted combination of Serge Lutens Clair de Musc (a fragrance that made me so emotional when I first smelled it that I had to fight back tears in Selfridges, so strong were the memories of the various female relatives who cant be with me on my wedding day) spritzed onto skin prepped with a generous layer of The Body Shop White Musk Oil. This particular combination has garnered compliments from complete strangers, including various hardened beauty journalists ... Well, itd certainly be unexpected...

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About the author

Louise is a management accountant by day, beauty editor by night, and has been writing getlippie.com since 2009 in a (failed) attempt to rid herself of her lipstick addiction. She also writes regularly for SLiNK magazine